Chapter 3 - Cold Water
28 days remaining
Cielo
“FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!” I could hear the sounds of a fight circle building around two students. They both seemed to be males around my age, Neither seemed like they wanted to be there. The camp encourages fights between students instead of disbanding them. I’m one of the few people lucky enough to have never gotten myself into one of these.
“That looks violent.” For the past few days, Skye and I have been sitting together during our meals. It’s not much but it helps us coordinate our plans.
“It really is, Only twenty-eight days left, Right? We can do this. Then it’ll all be over.” I told her.
“We’ll need to start doing something.” She told me.
“At 2 pm during the exercise period, I’ll try to find a use for my chains. Do you have time?”
“As much as any other day here.” She remarked while picking at her food.
She was resting her cheek on her right hand while tiredly gazing down towards her food.
“I wonder how long I can go without eating this before I die.” She continued.
“A part of me wants to encourage you to eat it, But honestly, I’m not sure how much worse off you would be if you didn’t. I said. I glanced towards the clock.
“It’s almost time to leave,” I said while standing from my seat. Skye soon followed after me. We have fifteen or so minutes in the bunk room before we start being assigned jobs by the leaders.
“Stay close by me,” I whispered into Skye’s ear. Low lives like them might see someone like her as a target.
The exit was all but blocked the circle. It made leaving require narrowly scathing by the circle. I began to walk through the commotion, My eyes were facing straight forward. One of the things that I’ve learned here is that the best way to avoid a fight is to pay no mind to it. Through the crowd of crazed people, I could make out the two people in the center again.
“Stop playing dumb, Smartass. We know you’re the one who did it.”
“And why wouldn’t it be you? You’re the one with the blood-stained fingertips.”
“You’re acting like that’s uncommon here. JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE PLANNING AND I WON’T HURT YOU.” I stopped for a moment to glance towards the fight. They seemed to be distracted enough from each other for me to observe them for a few seconds
“I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING, I SWEAR. THIS ISN’T HELPING! GO TO SOMEONE ELSE. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE DEVILS ARE!” He was beginning to become frantic.
“The Devil’s?! Isn’t that the name that Skye gave to us?” I cupped my hand over my mouth in an attempt to keep myself from laughing.
“These fools are doing my work for me.”
“C-Cielo, Why did you stop moving?” Skye muttered quietly under her teeth. It seemed that she wasn’t paying much mind to the fight.
“S-Sorry, I got lost in thought,” I told her as I continued walking.
9:45 am
I was lying facing the Ceiling of the bunk room. Unlike normal bunk beds, These went three tall, and the top one nearly touched the ceiling. I reached into my back pant pocket and pulled out the bottle of my blood.
“I’m surprised that they haven’t taken this from me yet. I’d try to hide it, But this place is so heavily surveyed that this is the best I can manage.” I rest my head on top of my hands, which in turn, Brought my head even closer to the dull gray ceiling.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m delusional. Is this going to help everybody here? or am I just hurting myself? Am I hurting Skye too? I wish I hadn’t gotten her into this.”
2 pm
As per usual. We were issued into the exercise area. I could hear the sounds of leaders yelling at students and students getting into fights with other students. At this point, it’s started to become white noise. There isn’t nearly enough equipment for everybody to use. It seemed as if there were five students for every dumbbell. Supposedly, I’m intimidating enough to get dumbbells nearly every day. I’m not sure if I like that, though. This is the only time that anybody can get a breath of fresh air since there aren’t any windows in the building. It seemed as if it was raining yesterday. I could see the gray sky and heavy dew drops weighing the leaves and branches down towards us. It wasn’t wet, It was just moist. You could lay your palm flat on anything and feel its slight moisture but not find a single puddle.
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I focused my vision on the doorway.
“I’ll probably see her soon.” I thought to myself. I began to fall back into a daze
“I wonder what would happen if I tried to jump those fences. It’s such a slight chance of escape, And once they catch me, They’ll never give me a chance again. I hate having to do shit the slow way. I wonder how-”
“Yo, Cielo!” I felt Skye’s palm on my shoulder. I was shocked for a second as I darted my eyes back towards her.
“I picked this up!” She was holding a sturdy-looking wooden branch that appeared as if she had pulled it off one of the trees moments prior.
“It’s nothing special, But you'd be better off having something to hit than to not!” She said excitedly.
“Maybe making this plan wasn’t terrible for her.” I thought to myself
“It makes me so happy knowing that this gives her hope . . . It almost feels as if we’ve regained a part of our freedom already.”
“Okay . . . Let's do this!” I said in an equally excited tone despite not being sure how much of it was legitimate.
“W-We just have to make sure that none of the leaders see us . . . Hopefully they’ll assume it’s some sort of exercise.”
“Hopefully, I haven’t thought of that,” I remarked. Remembering why I was doing this. I’m lucky to have gotten any time to talk to somebody over the past few days. If I take this for granted it’ll come back to bite me.
“Just prop it up over there,” I told Skye while materializing another set of heavy metal chains into my hands. It was around three or so feet long. I could have made it longer if I wanted, but I can’t do any more than around twelve feet at a time. I firmly grasped the end of the chains and took a deep breath.
“The loud yelling and shouting of both the students and the leaders should be enough to drown out any sounds I could make.” I thought to myself. I took a deep breath. I swung. I could hear a distinct cracking sound coming from the impact. It was loud enough to surprise both Skye and me but not so much as to alert the crowd.
“I-I didn’t know I was that strong.” I stammered out.
“That was a pretty tough-looking branch. You pulled that off of a tree just a couple of minutes ago, Right?” I asked.
“Y-Yeah.” Skye said, equally surprised.
“I-I wonder what your limit is.” She asked while slowly backing into the crowd and coming back with a branch nearly twice the size after a couple of moments. She propped it up against the fence in the same spot. I grabbed the chains tightly again. This time I let out a loud grunt as I swung the chains towards the stick, this time in full concentration. This time the cracking was louder, Deadlier, And even more pronounced. In the blink of an eye, the branch was no longer in its original spot. Panicked, I looked from side to side. I saw Skye, Hunched over slightly with a red spot on her upper arm.
“A-Are you okay!?” I yelped at her, Shocked. She looked towards the ground with a quiet expression As she picked the stick up from off the ground.
“I-I’m not that weak, you know.” She said as grasped the branch and broke what was left of it with her leg.
“Should we stop for now?” I asked
“I’ll just go back to the dumbbells.”
“No,” Skye replied.
“Can you give me your chains for a second?” She asked.
“Y-Yeah.” I replied while handing my chains to her, Somewhat hesitantly. She smirked slightly and quickly dashed behind me, Wrapping my chains around my neck.
“How does that feel?” She said smugly.
I, paralyzed by the situation, failed to say anything. She quickly unwrapped them to which I replied;
“Pretty fucking scary.”
“You have to think outside the box, remember? Combat isn’t only about attacking with the most power.” She threw the chains towards me and I quickly caught them out of the air.
“I feel satisfied with today. What about you?” She asked. I smiled slightly
“Yeah.” I said.
27 days remaining
Skye
9:15 am
“I’m still not sure why I said that the event will happen in a month. We’ve barely made any progress. We’ve told everybody that we’ll be doing something on march 1st but I don’t even know what.” I sighed as I rolled my face down into my palms.
“What did Cielo even mean when he said that we’ll ‘Strike’?”
“Hey, Skye!” I jumped slightly as I heard Cielo’s voice from behind me.
“What’cha thinking about?” he asked.
“N-Nothing,” I replied. Cielo sat down in the seat next to me.
“Really?” He asked. I felt myself blushing slightly.
“I just . . . Don’t know if this is the best idea. It’s our only way out of here but I’m not sure how we’re going to go through with it.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. I looked towards him gently.
“Let me be blunt. What are we doing on march first?” I asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that.” He said.
“It’s scary . . . I don’t want to have to kill anybody. But his name is Onyx. He’s the person who runs this entire operation. The leaders will still be here, Of course. But once he’s gone they won’t have any order.” He replied.
“Also, I heard a rumor that the kid from the fistfight was killed yesterday on the assumption that he was one of the ‘Devils’” Cielo said. A cold sweat formed on my forehead, Chilling my face, Which almost immediately transformed into a jolt that shot down my spine and then back up towards my face.
“That could have been us.”